by Eva Devon
Move from shadow to shadow, so that even if someone sees you, by the time they look back there will be nothing to see.
The months had not dimmed Papa's gravely voice in Amie's memory, nor his face, lined with pain and years and loss, or his eyes, filled with affection.
Papa had been known for three things in his life. Firstly, for being the finest rooftop man in London until a terrible fall broke both his legs. Secondly, for wearing the gaudiest, most dreadful weskits to ever see needle and thread.
And thirdly, for betraying a certain group of Crown spies to a French infiltrator, bringing about multiple murders with that treachery.
The other thing, of which the world had no notion, was that he'd been a loving and protective papa to three devoted daughters.
No matter what the world had thought of him, thief or failure or even traitor, to Amie he would always be the man who cared enough to teach her the true way of the world, to teach them all to survive.
When she finally let herself through her own back gate and crossed the utilitarian garden toward the kitchen of the house she shared with her two sisters, she was exhausted and somewhat saddened. The ordinary house appeared sad and rundown in comparison to the glittering mansion she'd danced in only a few hours before.
It wasn't really that she wanted to attend that sort of ball, where people did questionable things for questionable reasons. It was only that it was a kind of life she would never live.
Her father had been as common as gutter mud but her mother had not. Lady Dorothea Montgomery had run away with a man she'd caught rifling through her grandmother's jewels and never looked back. She'd been happy with her little house, her rakish but devoted husband and her three little daughters.
Mama could never have known what she did to Amie with her stories of her sparkling life and her grand debut. They were simply her memories, told without regret or melancholy.
But for Amie, those stories caused a rift in her world. Although they were the grand-daughters of a duke, she and her sisters would never be presented to the Prince Regent at Court.
Amie would never waltz with a handsome young man—or tell him her real name. She would never spend giddy hours choosing gowns and bonnets and gloves.
Most of the time those activities seemed silly and wasteful to her. Yet once in a while, the glimpses she had of that other life while she worked a mark made her feel like a hungry child staring in a window at a grand feast, shivering unnoticed in the cold while others sated themselves in warmth and laughter and plenty.
Then as she came close to the house she could see into the window of her own kitchen. The room glowed even though candles were spare and the fire was as much for cooking as it was for comfort. Her two sisters, Emma and Ruby, bustled around the kitchen although it was still dark outside. And she didn't have to linger outside this warmth. It was rightfully hers.
Amie opened the back door and stood in the narrow entrance hall shaking out her boy's coat. Before the gathered mist could even drip to the floor her sisters were there for her.
“I’ll take that,” Emma said as she reached for Amie's rucksack.
“You look so cold.” Ruby took off her own shawl and draped it over Amie's shoulders. “Come and sit down. Emma has just finished the baking.”
Within moments, Amie sipped weak tea and munched on one of Emma's special biscuits—the ones she managed to concoct with almost no butter and only one egg.
Emma unpacked the rucksack with her usual efficiency. She shook out the green gown and examined it for rips or stains. “Oh, excellent. I wasn't sure those beads would stay on. I've re-trimmed this thing so many times it's a wonder the fabric has any integrity whatsoever.”
Ruby, who was only eighteen after all, jiggled impatiently, almost dancing from one foot to the other. “Did you get anything?”
Amie tried to hide it, because Ruby was very easy to tease. But she couldn't keep the smile from growing slowly on her face as she bent over her tea.
Ruby spotted it once and clapped her hands in excitement. “I knew it. I just knew it!”
At that moment, Emma pulled the handkerchief-wrapped packet from the bottom of the rucksack, underneath the secret flap that would've withstood the searching hands of anyone who didn't know where to look. Emma laid it on the table and they all gazed at it reverently for a moment.
Why not take a moment to relish something so important? This was a new day. No more slipping into one house at a time, slipping out with a single silver candlestick or a porcelain dog from the mantel of a little used room. Goodness, last winter she'd been too terrified to steal anything but food from a few larders!
Then, patience spent, Ruby was on it with a leap, as Ruby was on everything. Amie and Emma sat back and watched their youngest sibling unfold the handkerchief and roll out a pile of gleaming jewels and shimmering pearls.
The loot gleamed in the dimness of the kitchen and the light of the two candle stumps that still burned.
Amie sat up and raised a brow. “Not bad.”
Emma slid her a glance. “Didn't you know?”
Amie carefully didn't look at her sister. “It was dark and—” I stole it from the man who stole it. “And I needed to be quick.”
She could have told them about the handsome thief in the study, but then she would have had to tell them about the dance. She'd been so intrigued by the combination of his flirtatious grin beneath his serious eyes. Heavens, he had smelled so good when she'd pressed close enough to pull the jewels from his pocket. The scent of him, that spicy mix of man and clean, light cologne, had made her thighs tighten beneath her gown.
Was it so wrong to want to keep the experience to herself a little longer? The interference hadn't mattered in the end, after all. She still ended up with the goods.
Meanwhile, Ruby parted the tangled strands of pearls with deft fingers and laid them out to one side. Emma bent to peer at them. “Matched. Excellent. The pink pearls will bring a good price, but we'll have to be careful. They're very easy to remember.”
Then from the jumble on the table Ruby lifted a chain from which dangled an astonishing emerald in a square of rose-cut diamonds. It was the size of a horse's eye and glowed in the candlelight with a perfect green light. They all regarded it in appalled silence.
“Oh no.” Ruby's eyes were enormous. “That must be at least twelve carats. Do we even know how to sell it?”
Amie made a slight face. It was a blow, to be sure. Important jewels, jewels that made a statement and were memorable, had led to many a thief's capture in the past. “Papa wouldn't touch that.”
Emma tapped a single finger to her lips in thought. “If we knew a cutter…” She held out her hand and Ruby dropped the stone into it. Emma held it to the candle turning left and right. “The diamonds are easy.”
She pulled a jeweler's loupe from her apron pocket and swiveled the lens free. She held the small magnifier to her eye. “They're not terribly remarkable, although good enough to bring a bit of coin.” She turned the pendant over to look at the setting more closely. “It's beautifully made. A lovely design. Perhaps we should hold it for the future.”
Amie nodded. Papa had always kept a stash of easily identifiable jewels. He called it his bribery box. A pretty something came in useful, to wave before a greedy magistrate's eyes, to dazzle and sway someone in authority just long enough to beat a retreat and disappear. That left the difficulty of disposal in the hands of some unsuspecting grafter.
“I’ll put it in Papa's box.” Amie reached for the gem.
“I’ll do it!” Ruby took the necklace and bustled from the kitchen.
Emma watched her go with reluctance in her gaze. “I could learn to cut.”
“Emeralds are too brittle. The job requires a master.” Amie smiled wearily at her. “And we don't have time.”
“No.” Ruby reentered the kitchen and plunked down in her chair. “We can't go to a cutter. Even if we found one, we don't know if we could trust them. Papa claims cutters are
more interested in the gems than in profit. If they saw something like that”—she indicated the emerald—“they'd never desecrate it.”
Amie gazed at her sisters, looking from one to the other. She knew better than to let her concern show, but she knew them better than anyone in the world. Papa claims...
Ruby was the youngest, and although she had known Papa for the fewest years, she was the only one who still spoke of him in the present tense.
As if he were still alive. Concerning as that was, the more immediate issue was…
“Is it enough?”
Both Amie and Ruby gazed at Emma and waited. Emma sorted through the jewels touching each one, her lips moving slightly as she calculated the probable sale price. When she was done she sat back and let out a small sigh.
“We'll be able to keep the house. It will be enough to calm our debtors for a time…but only just.” She brightened slightly. “Still, we should have enough left to buy a bit of food.”
“Ham!” Ruby sang out. “Oranges!” She beamed at Amie with pride. “See, it is Christmas, after all!”
Amie found herself, as she sometimes did, riveted by her little sister's uncommon beauty. Ruby was all flashing dark eyes and shining black curls, vivid and lively. Her figure already stopped men in their tracks, whether they be dukes or dockworkers.
Emma had a quieter loveliness, like Mama's. The cool, restrained perfection of a marble goddess. Those quiet ones are the ones you have to watch out for, Papa used to tease Mama. Or they'll run off with the first charming thief who comes along!
Emma's hair was almost more blond than red and her figure elegantly slim. If Ruby bounced when she moved, then Emma danced. Both were extraordinarily beautiful, in their individual ways.
Amie tried not to compare herself, for she didn't believe sisters should compete. She herself was tall and freckled and blotched most dreadfully when she blushed. Emma claimed she looked like Mama, too, but all Amie could see in the mirror was Papa's ginger hair, his height and his early ability to climb anything.
You are not an extraordinary creature. You are not a goddess. You are only a rather good thief.
For the first time, the dismaying thought occurred to Amie that, had she not caught her handsome counterpart in the act, he might never have noticed her at all.
Chapter 3
Elliott could've been more discreet as he reentered his favorite establishment by using the front door. Then again, what was the problem? He was a young man dressed in evening clothes, wandering the streets of London a few hours after sunup, clearly a fellow who did not wish to go home. Where else would such a bloke go but to a gentlemen's club? Especially to an expensive but slightly disreputable gaming hell like the Liar's Club.
There was a short young man standing before the club door dressed in green and black livery.
“Isn't this a bit early for a formal doorman, Stubbs?” Elliott looked askance at the bright morning. “The other gambling hells won't open for hours.”
The young man opened the door and waved Elliott inside. “It's good to see you again, my lord.”
Elliott clapped Stubbs on the shoulder with a laugh. “You're the very picture of proper English staff, Stubbs!” He sauntered through the open door. “Job well done.”
Perhaps it was Elliott's imagination, but he could swear that just before the door closed behind them he heard Stubbs mutter, “Been here twice as long as you, you silly toff.”
Elliott didn't correct him. He wasn't a toff, at least not in any substantial way. He was more toff-esque, or toff-like, or possibly toff-adjacent. He himself wasn't someone, but he did know people who were.
This didn't usually bother Elliott, and it didn't bother him now. His natural ability to blend into Society was too useful a tool for his superiors to do without.
It was dead quiet inside the club and there was no one in the card room, and no one tending the bar. He could smell something cooking though, which meant Kurt was at work as always.
As Elliott passed through several layers of obvious and not-so-obvious doorways that led to the interior of the true club, the club with the real Liars, he could tell that not only was Kurt baking bread but quite possibly...almond biscuits?
Elliott was no slave to his stomach, but he'd danced and flirted and robbed and been robbed without ever making it to the actual dinner or any of the tidbits set out for the guests at last night's ball. His stomach growled a rather loud complaint about the drastic lack of almond biscuits inside it.
Instead of taking a left, as he properly should in order to promptly report to Sir James Cunnington, his immediate superior, Elliott took a detour to his right and dashed toward the kitchen.
He heard light, piping voices answered by a brief low rumble as he near the kitchen door. Once there, he entered the warm, fragrant glow of baking and bubbling cook-pots and giggling children. The ladies and gents of the Liar's Club had decided to celebrate Christmas at the club, for were the Liars not their family?
Now normally, one would not imagine small children enjoying the company of a large, scarred, hairy, monosyllabic giant wielding an enormous knife, but this was the Liar's Club. It probably seemed perfectly normal to the offspring of spies to coax sweets from Kurt the Cook, one of the deadliest men in England, the foremost assassin-in-residence.
Elliott, on the other hand, could be a very polite fellow when he wanted to be. Kurt glared at him from under bushy brows in inquiry as to his business there.
“Uncle Elliot!” One of the persons of negligible height impacted his leg and twined little arms around his knee.
Elliott picked her up, flipped her over his shoulder, then wiggled his fingers at the rest while she giggled into his back. “Good morning all. I have had a long night, working for the good of Crown and Country. Perhaps a tiny reward?”
Kurt uttered a short grunt that expressed his opinion of people who believed they deserved reward for simply doing their job, but he also ran a spatula under three biscuits on a tray fresh from the oven. He tossed them into a cloth, which he folded rapidly and threw in Elliott's direction in a single motion. Elliott snagged his reward out of the air and turned the motion into a flourishing bow, taking advantage of his proximity to the floor to deposit his flaxen-haired admirer on her own little feet.
“A thousand thanks, dear Sir.”
Kurt didn't even bother to grunt this time but only sent Elliott an acid glare that made him laugh even as he scuttled to safety through the kitchen door. Kurt would never do anything to frighten the children, but these were Liar children and not easily frightened. And Kurt was incredibly accurate with a throwing knife.
Elliott burned his mouth on the first heavenly biscuit before he managed to slow down enough to blow his treat cool before biting in.
James Cunnington was Elliott's immediate superior and second-in-command in the Liar's Club. He stood over the desk where a lovely russet-haired woman bent over a pile of papers scribbling furiously. He looked up when Elliot sauntered in.
“You're late. Even for you.”
Elliot lifted a shoulder. “Fell asleep after Beardsley’s.” Actually, he'd run himself ragged chasing after every carriage leaving the ball, trying to get a glimpse of his adorably light-fingered dance partner. Now he had no choice but to face the music. He handed off his coded copies to his superior. “Sorry.”
James took them and flipped through the pages. “Neatly done. I'll get these to Fisher.” Then he gave Elliot a stern glare. “But remember, Elliot, every moment counts.” James turned back to the lady in the chair.
She, in turn, looked up at Elliott with a glint of amusement at her eyes. “He's grumpy. Something about the Vixen is bothering him.”
Elliott raised brow. “So the Vixen is real?”
“More or less.” James folded his arms and glared down at the gossip-sheets spread across the desk. “If you can believe that claptrap.”
Phillipa rolled her eyes at Elliott. She might be James's beloved wife but she was also no str
anger to the world of spies. Her father had been one of the lead cryptologists for the Liars at one time. “Gossip is a very reliable source. A gossip doesn't take sides. These tattletales don't care for anything but exposing secrets.” She began to read aloud.
“What a fuss and flutter, Dear Readers, what a bang and bother! That wicked wisp of fog and fancy, London's very own Vixen, has struck again!
Poor Lord B—, if one may pity such an unpleasant fellow. He is wealthy still, although your Voice of Society happens to know he is poorer by a certain priceless emerald, among other trinkets.
Look no further than the Mistress of Mystery, Lord B—, for the source of your vexation! She holds your treasure as closely as she holds the hearts and imaginations of London herself!”
Phillipa set the newssheet down with a grimace. “Good secrets, ugly secrets or traitorous secrets. They simply don't have any other agenda than to expose them.”
Elliott grinned at her. “And James still doesn't like it that they exposed the Griffin, does he?”
Perhaps he'd put a bit too much flirt into that grin, because James stepped between them, his large form entirely blocking Elliot's view of the delectably but entirely married Mrs. Dangerous Spy.
Men in love were so easy. Still, James had a fierce right hook and a murderous bent when it came to his darling Flip, so Elliot raised both hands and backed off a step. “And here I was going to give you one of my biscuits, hot from the oven.”
Phillipa poked her head around her mountainous husband. “They're done baking? We can finish this later, darling.” With a rustle of skirts and a patter of dainty feet, she was off to the kitchens to battle a passel of tots for a biscuit.
Which left Elliot alone with a jealous husband. This did tend to happen to him now and again.
Elliot thought it was about time he distracted his commander. “You know, I had begun to suspect that we created the Vixen as a cover for our own activities.”
It worked. James snorted and dropped his bristling pose. “How brilliant of us. I'll keep that in mind for the future. But actually no, we are merely taking advantage of an existing situation. There is a real Vixen and she is becoming quite a problem.”
